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Xcode's Swift Playground

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darrinm

Jun 03, 2014; 6:33am

Xcode's Swift Playground

This is the sort of thing Smalltalk seems well suited for (live coding w/ value and iteration display). Does anyone know of something like it that has been done before in Smalltalk?

I don't have a good link to a demonstration purely of the Playground but there is a little info here: https://developer.apple.com/swift/

jtuchel

Jun 03, 2014; 6:40am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

I remember seeing a demo of F# at an Eclipse conference a few years ago.
It also very much reminded me of Smalltalk.

What's interesting about swift is not only that Apple chose an existing
name for their new programming language (interesting for a company that
is very careful about their own brand names), but that swift seems to be
statically typed, while one of the biggest advantages of Objective-C is
that it allows for dynamic typing (to some extent)...

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 08:33, schrieb darrinm:

> This is the sort of thing Smalltalk seems well suited for (live coding w/
> value and iteration display). Does anyone know of something like it that has
> been done before in Smalltalk?
>
> I don't have a good link to a demonstration purely of the Playground but
> there is a little info here: https://developer.apple.com/swift/
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425.html
> Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

... [show rest of quote]

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:[hidden email]
Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com
Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1

Uko2

Jun 03, 2014; 6:50am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by darrinm

Sent from my iPhone

On 03 Jun 2014, at 12:03, darrinm <[hidden email]> wrote:

This is the sort of thing Smalltalk seems well suited for (live coding w/
value and iteration display). Does anyone know of something like it that has
been done before in Smalltalk?

Look, this video was done a year ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu_C0ldSqrs. Yes, not as fancy, but it's a game programming with live feedback.

Now there is also GToolkit that provides an interactive way of programming and so on.

Uko

I don't have a good link to a demonstration purely of the Playground but
there is a little info here: https://developer.apple.com/swift/

--
View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

darrinm

Jun 03, 2014; 7:02am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by darrinm

Here's an example of the Playground in use: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/recipes/xcode_help-source_editor/ExploringandEvaluatingSwiftCodeinaPlayground/ExploringandEvaluatingSwiftCodeinaPlayground.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009975-CH26

Clément Béra

Jun 03, 2014; 7:10am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by jtuchel

2014-06-03 8:40 GMT+02:00 [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:

I remember seeing a demo of F# at an Eclipse conference a few years ago. It also very much reminded me of Smalltalk.

What's interesting about swift is not only that Apple chose an existing name for their new programming language (interesting for a company that is very careful about their own brand names), but that swift seems to be statically typed, while one of the biggest advantages of Objective-C is that it allows for dynamic typing (to some extent)...

To what I understand, types are inferred, it is not statically typed. Am I wrong ?

Clement

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 08:33, schrieb darrinm:

This is the sort of thing Smalltalk seems well suited for (live coding w/
value and iteration display). Does anyone know of something like it that has
been done before in Smalltalk?

I don't have a good link to a demonstration purely of the Playground but
there is a little info here: https://developer.apple.com/swift/

--
View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:[hidden email]
Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com
Telefon: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%200" value="+4971415610860" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%201" value="+4971415610861" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 1

... [show rest of quote]

jtuchel

Jun 03, 2014; 7:13am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by darrinm

Yeah looks cool. Just a step further, no revolution though. The fact
that for each statement Playground will immediately show its results
next to the code, makes programming a bit easier.

I wonder how/if this works for code that does not define all its values
with let statements ;-). But I guess this is why it's a playground and
not the debugger/code editor. Because if the values to "inspect" are
parameters to a method, this won't work as nicely.

But I can see how Apple's Playground could be a nice addition to
Smalltalk's workspaces. This probably isn't even too much work... I look
forward to seeing the first prototypes of a Smalltalk Playground ;-)

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 09:02, schrieb darrinm:

> Here's an example of the Playground in use:
> https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/recipes/xcode_help-source_editor/ExploringandEvaluatingSwiftCodeinaPlayground/ExploringandEvaluatingSwiftCodeinaPlayground.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009975-CH26
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425p4761431.html
> Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

Tudor Girba-2

Jun 03, 2014; 7:15am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by darrinm

Hi,

The work on GToolkit goes in this direction. Funny enough, we also have a Playground :).

Look here for an example:

http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/dynamic-exploration-of-a-postgres-db-with-the-gtinspector/

More will come in this direction. I happen to believe that this is the area with the largest potential in Pharo, and it would be great to put more effort around it. If people have an interest to participate, please just let me know.

Cheers,

Doru

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 9:02 AM, darrinm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Here's an example of the Playground in use:
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/recipes/xcode_help-source_editor/ExploringandEvaluatingSwiftCodeinaPlayground/ExploringandEvaluatingSwiftCodeinaPlayground.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009975-CH26

--
View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425p4761431.html

Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

www.tudorgirba.com

"Every thing has its own flow"

jtuchel

Jun 03, 2014; 7:16am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by Clément Béra

Clement,

Hmm, as far as I've read (and I haven't read much), all methods have an obligatory return type.

But you can write let a = "some text", so I guess you are right. And me probably too ;-)

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 09:10, schrieb Clément Bera:

2014-06-03 8:40 GMT+02:00 [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:

I remember seeing a demo of F# at an Eclipse conference a few years ago. It also very much reminded me of Smalltalk.

What's interesting about swift is not only that Apple chose an existing name for their new programming language (interesting for a company that is very careful about their own brand names), but that swift seems to be statically typed, while one of the biggest advantages of Objective-C is that it allows for dynamic typing (to some extent)...

To what I understand, types are inferred, it is not statically typed. Am I wrong ?

Clement

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 08:33, schrieb darrinm:

This is the sort of thing Smalltalk seems well suited for (live coding w/
value and iteration display). Does anyone know of something like it that has
been done before in Smalltalk?

I don't have a good link to a demonstration purely of the Playground but
there is a little info here: https://developer.apple.com/swift/

--
View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:[hidden email]
Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com
Telefon: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%200" value="+4971415610860" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%201" value="+4971415610861" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 1

... [show rest of quote]

... [show rest of quote]

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel          [hidden email]
Fliederweg 1                         http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71640 Ludwigsburg                  http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com
Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0         Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1

kilon.alios

Jun 03, 2014; 8:05am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

The big question here is not whether Pharo can implement something similar to Playground, Moose and Roassal in particular are quite close.

The one million dollars question is Swift a live coding language or is Swift a language with some live coding tools. Obviously I would love to be the first option, but for the time being I try to contain my enthusiasm. When it comes to love coding lisp and smalltalk appear to have no competition AFAIK, I would love if Swift joins the club, If its the second option, really pity for Swift but still better than nothing.

Obviously its extremely early to tell without actually testing the tools ourselves. It looks like that both lisp and smalltalk are still the pillar upon which modern languages are based and that can be only good news.

The one billion dollars question is how well live coding of Swift would play with live coding of Pharo , it would awesome to have a unified live coding environment for both langauges and I see pharo developers bringing a ton of native ios and macos libraries to pharo. Its difficult not to get excited with this.

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 10:16 AM, [hidden email] <[hidden email]> wrote:

Clement,

Hmm, as far as I've read (and I haven't read much), all methods have an obligatory return type.

But you can write let a = "some text", so I guess you are right. And me probably too ;-)

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 09:10, schrieb Clément Bera:
2014-06-03 8:40 GMT+02:00 [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:

I remember seeing a demo of F# at an Eclipse conference a few years ago. It also very much reminded me of Smalltalk.

What's interesting about swift is not only that Apple chose an existing name for their new programming language (interesting for a company that is very careful about their own brand names), but that swift seems to be statically typed, while one of the biggest advantages of Objective-C is that it allows for dynamic typing (to some extent)...

To what I understand, types are inferred, it is not statically typed. Am I wrong ?

Clement

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 08:33, schrieb darrinm:

This is the sort of thing Smalltalk seems well suited for (live coding w/
value and iteration display). Does anyone know of something like it that has
been done before in Smalltalk?

I don't have a good link to a demonstration purely of the Playground but
there is a little info here: https://developer.apple.com/swift/

--
View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:[hidden email]
Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com
Telefon: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%200" value="+4971415610860" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%201" value="+4971415610861" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 1

... [show rest of quote]

... [show rest of quote]
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel          [hidden email]
Fliederweg 1                         http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71640 Ludwigsburg                  http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com
Telefon: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%200" value="+4971415610860" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 0         Fax: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%201" value="+4971415610861" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 1

... [show rest of quote]

camille teruel

Jun 03, 2014; 8:21am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by Clément Béra

On 3 juin 2014, at 09:10, Clément Bera <[hidden email]> wrote:

2014-06-03 8:40 GMT+02:00 [hidden email] <[hidden email]>:

I remember seeing a demo of F# at an Eclipse conference a few years ago. It also very much reminded me of Smalltalk.

What's interesting about swift is not only that Apple chose an existing name for their new programming language (interesting for a company that is very careful about their own brand names), but that swift seems to be statically typed, while one of the biggest advantages of Objective-C is that it allows for dynamic typing (to some extent)...

To what I understand, types are inferred, it is not statically typed. Am I wrong ?

If there is type inference then it is statically typed (at least partially if not every variable type can be inferred)

Clement

Joachim

Am 03.06.14 08:33, schrieb darrinm:

This is the sort of thing Smalltalk seems well suited for (live coding w/
value and iteration display). Does anyone know of something like it that has
been done before in Smalltalk?

I don't have a good link to a demonstration purely of the Playground but
there is a little info here: https://developer.apple.com/swift/

--
View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Xcode-s-Swift-Playground-tp4761425.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:[hidden email]
Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com
Telefon: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%200" value="+4971415610860" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: <a href="tel:%2B49%207141%2056%2010%2086%201" value="+4971415610861" target="_blank">+49 7141 56 10 86 1

... [show rest of quote]

... [show rest of quote]

stepharo

Jun 03, 2014; 8:29am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by Tudor Girba-2

> Hi,
>
> The work on GToolkit goes in this direction. Funny enough, we also
> have a Playground :).
>
> Look here for an example:
> http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/dynamic-exploration-of-a-postgres-db-with-the-gtinspector/
>
> More will come in this direction. I happen to believe that this is the
> area with the largest potential in Pharo, and it would be great to put
> more effort around it. If people have an interest to participate,
> please just let me know.

+ 1

Now my plate is full but I encourage people to join effort.

Stef

kilon.alios

Jun 03, 2014; 8:53am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

For anyone who has not not watched it yet, you can watch the Playground demo here. Looks like they were inspired by Bred Victor demos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62x8Oq_QP4

Swift is statically typed with type inference. BUT it has generics and optional types. So it looks like it tries to let you have the cake and eat it too.

It also removes the need for header files , so it really moves away from the C paradigm.

There is a quick toor here

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/GuidedTour.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014097-CH2

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 11:29 AM, stepharo <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,

The work on GToolkit goes in this direction. Funny enough, we also have a Playground :).

Look here for an example:
http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/dynamic-exploration-of-a-postgres-db-with-the-gtinspector/

More will come in this direction. I happen to believe that this is the area with the largest potential in Pharo, and it would be great to put more effort around it. If people have an interest to participate, please just let me know.

+ 1

Now my plate is full but I encourage people to join effort.

Stef

... [show rest of quote]

Uko2

Jun 03, 2014; 8:57am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

On 03 Jun 2014, at 14:23, kilon alios <[hidden email]> wrote:

For anyone who has not not watched it yet, you can watch the Playground demo here. Looks like they were inspired by Bred Victor demos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62x8Oq_QP4

Swift is statically typed with type inference. BUT it has generics and optional types. So it looks like it tries to let you have the cake and eat it too.

It also removes the need for header files , so it really moves away from the C paradigm.

There is a quick toor here

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/GuidedTour.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014097-CH2

We have to do some type inference (for tools) some time. Should be fun. (by the way, is there something like that already?)

Uko

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 11:29 AM, stepharo <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,

The work on GToolkit goes in this direction. Funny enough, we also have a Playground :).

Look here for an example:
http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/dynamic-exploration-of-a-postgres-db-with-the-gtinspector/

More will come in this direction. I happen to believe that this is the area with the largest potential in Pharo, and it would be great to put more effort around it. If people have an interest to participate, please just let me know.

+ 1

Now my plate is full but I encourage people to join effort.

Stef

... [show rest of quote]

... [show rest of quote]

Sven Van Caekenberghe-2

Jun 03, 2014; 9:00am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by kilon.alios

On 03 Jun 2014, at 10:53, kilon alios <[hidden email]> wrote:

> For anyone who has not not watched it yet, you can watch the Playground demo here. Looks like they were inspired by Bred Victor demos.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62x8Oq_QP4
>
> Swift is statically typed with type inference. BUT it has generics and optional types. So it looks like it tries to let you have the cake and eat it too.

It is way to early to have an opinion (especially since one should use a language before commenting), but ...

1 - it is very nice to see Apple play in the language design world (it will get traction I am sure)
2 - it feels like a pretty complex language, both in terms of syntax options, concepts and rules, especially around types (the language book is 500 pages I believe)

What makes Pharo and Smalltalk so cool is this magical simplicity on so many levels.

> It also removes the need for header files , so it really moves away from the C paradigm.
>
> There is a quick toor here
>
> https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/GuidedTour.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014097-CH2
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 11:29 AM, stepharo <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> The work on GToolkit goes in this direction. Funny enough, we also have a Playground :).
>
> Look here for an example:
> http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/dynamic-exploration-of-a-postgres-db-with-the-gtinspector/
>
> More will come in this direction. I happen to believe that this is the area with the largest potential in Pharo, and it would be great to put more effort around it. If people have an interest to participate, please just let me know.
>
> + 1
>
> Now my plate is full but I encourage people to join effort.
>
> Stef
>
>

... [show rest of quote]

kilon.alios

Jun 03, 2014; 9:21am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

"What makes Pharo and Smalltalk so cool is this magical simplicity on so many levels."

I have a problem with this, I think its not sincere. I know that a Pharo developers would love to throw on my face the basic syntax of Pharo that can fit in a single page but the truth is that Pharo because it is Smalltalk it follows the exact same recipe of the "get the F!@#$% out" which means it throws everything outside the language in form of libraries of objects. Pharo is definetly not that simple. Why ? Because coding is not simple .

So if it is to be a fair comparison take those 500 pages and find equivalent features in Pharo and I don't think you will find that they are that different in terms of complexity.

And its not as if Swift is revolutionary any more than Smalltalk or Pharo is revolutionary. All languages copy from each other.

I will have to agree that Pharo appears simpler than Swift, but I doubt that it does not miss many features that Swift has. As you said its too early to say.

I have not read those 500 pages, personally I dont see what the big deal is, PBE is 400 pages and barely touches what Pharo really is. I fail for the time being viewing Swift as a complex language, I just hope does not end up as ugly as JavaScript. Good ideas that are badly implemented. I doubt it though.

PS: I am downloading the Swift manual right now

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 03 Jun 2014, at 10:53, kilon alios <[hidden email]> wrote:

> For anyone who has not not watched it yet, you can watch the Playground demo here. Looks like they were inspired by Bred Victor demos.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62x8Oq_QP4
>
> Swift is statically typed with type inference. BUT it has generics and optional types. So it looks like it tries to let you have the cake and eat it too.

It is way to early to have an opinion (especially since one should use a language before commenting), but ...

1 - it is very nice to see Apple play in the language design world (it will get traction I am sure)
2 - it feels like a pretty complex language, both in terms of syntax options, concepts and rules, especially around types (the language book is 500 pages I believe)

What makes Pharo and Smalltalk so cool is this magical simplicity on so many levels.

> It also removes the need for header files , so it really moves away from the C paradigm.
>
> There is a quick toor here
>
> https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/GuidedTour.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014097-CH2
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 11:29 AM, stepharo <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> The work on GToolkit goes in this direction. Funny enough, we also have a Playground :).
>
> Look here for an example:
> http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/dynamic-exploration-of-a-postgres-db-with-the-gtinspector/
>
> More will come in this direction. I happen to believe that this is the area with the largest potential in Pharo, and it would be great to put more effort around it. If people have an interest to participate, please just let me know.
>
> + 1
>
> Now my plate is full but I encourage people to join effort.
>
> Stef
>
>

... [show rest of quote]

aglynn42

Jun 03, 2014; 10:16am

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

I don't think the claim is that Pharo or any Smalltalk is 'simple', but when someone new to coding has to first learn how to pretend they're using a late 70"s terminal and a crappy text editor, then remember 20000 arcane commands just to get a project built, never mind debug it, the price of entry before starting to code is too high. Coding is stressful enough (unlike most people's tasks, it has to actually work) which helps understand why the average age that coders quit and go into another field is only 30 years old. A high initial curve cuts a very short average productive career that much shorter.

I wouldn't worry about swift being as bad as JS. Nothing is.

On Jun 3, 2014 4:21 AM, "kilon alios" <[hidden email]> wrote:

"What makes Pharo and Smalltalk so cool is this magical simplicity on so many levels."

I have a problem with this, I think its not sincere. I know that a Pharo developers would love to throw on my face the basic syntax of Pharo that can fit in a single page but the truth is that Pharo because it is Smalltalk it follows the exact same recipe of the "get the F!@#$% out" which means it throws everything outside the language in form of libraries of objects. Pharo is definetly not that simple. Why ? Because coding is not simple .

So if it is to be a fair comparison take those 500 pages and find equivalent features in Pharo and I don't think you will find that they are that different in terms of complexity.

And its not as if Swift is revolutionary any more than Smalltalk or Pharo is revolutionary. All languages copy from each other.

I will have to agree that Pharo appears simpler than Swift, but I doubt that it does not miss many features that Swift has. As you said its too early to say.

I have not read those 500 pages, personally I dont see what the big deal is, PBE is 400 pages and barely touches what Pharo really is. I fail for the time being viewing Swift as a complex language, I just hope does not end up as ugly as JavaScript. Good ideas that are badly implemented. I doubt it though.

PS: I am downloading the Swift manual right now

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 03 Jun 2014, at 10:53, kilon alios <[hidden email]> wrote:

> For anyone who has not not watched it yet, you can watch the Playground demo here. Looks like they were inspired by Bred Victor demos.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62x8Oq_QP4
>
> Swift is statically typed with type inference. BUT it has generics and optional types. So it looks like it tries to let you have the cake and eat it too.

It is way to early to have an opinion (especially since one should use a language before commenting), but ...

1 - it is very nice to see Apple play in the language design world (it will get traction I am sure)
2 - it feels like a pretty complex language, both in terms of syntax options, concepts and rules, especially around types (the language book is 500 pages I believe)

What makes Pharo and Smalltalk so cool is this magical simplicity on so many levels.

> It also removes the need for header files , so it really moves away from the C paradigm.
>
> There is a quick toor here
>
> https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/GuidedTour.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014097-CH2
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 11:29 AM, stepharo <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> The work on GToolkit goes in this direction. Funny enough, we also have a Playground :).
>
> Look here for an example:
> http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/dynamic-exploration-of-a-postgres-db-with-the-gtinspector/
>
> More will come in this direction. I happen to believe that this is the area with the largest potential in Pharo, and it would be great to put more effort around it. If people have an interest to participate, please just let me know.
>
> + 1
>
> Now my plate is full but I encourage people to join effort.
>
> Stef
>
>

... [show rest of quote]

... [show rest of quote]

jfabry

Jun 03, 2014; 3:32pm

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by Clément Béra

On Jun 3, 2014, at 3:10 AM, Clément Bera <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> What's interesting about swift is not only that Apple chose an existing name for their new programming language (interesting for a company that is very careful about their own brand names), but that swift seems to be statically typed, while one of the biggest advantages of Objective-C is that it allows for dynamic typing (to some extent)...
>
> To what I understand, types are inferred, it is not statically typed. Am I wrong ?

Type inference is actually orthogonal to static or dynamic typing. You can have a statically typed language with inferred types, where the programmer needs to put type annotations on places where the type inferrer gets lost, and you can infer types for a dynamically typed language. An example of the latter would be the RoelTyper shown at ESUG a looong time ago ;-)

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Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry
PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile

jfabry

Jun 03, 2014; 3:34pm

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by camille teruel

On Jun 3, 2014, at 4:21 AM, Camille Teruel <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> To what I understand, types are inferred, it is not statically typed. Am I wrong ?
>
> If there is type inference then it is statically typed (at least partially if not every variable type can be inferred)

To repeat myself: this is not the case. Example is the RoelTyper.

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Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry
PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile

jfabry

Jun 03, 2014; 3:59pm

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by Uko2

On Jun 3, 2014, at 4:57 AM, Yuriy Tymchuk <[hidden email]> wrote:

> We have to do some type inference (for tools) some time. Should be fun. (by the way, is there something like that already?)

There has been some work done on type inference for Smalltalk, the RoelTyper example that I keep mentioning worked on Squeak and there was a version on VW that Roel and I looked at in Gent a couple of years ago, but we did not go that way. More recently there was a google summer of code project on concrete type inference for Pharo if I am not mistaken.

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Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry
PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile

camille teruel

Jun 03, 2014; 4:32pm

Re: Xcode's Swift Playground

In reply to this post by jfabry

On 3 juin 2014, at 17:34, Johan Fabry <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> On Jun 3, 2014, at 4:21 AM, Camille Teruel <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>>> To what I understand, types are inferred, it is not statically typed. Am I wrong ?
>>
>> If there is type inference then it is statically typed (at least partially if not every variable type can be inferred)
>
> To repeat myself: this is not the case. Example is the RoelTyper.

Yes, there are many type inferencers for dynamically-typed languages.
But that's not because one builds a type inferencer for say Smalltalk that I can say "Smalltalk has type inference": the inferencer is not integrated within the language, it's just an analysis tool on top.
If someone says that his language has type inference, he means that the type inferencer is built into the language, and normally there is some type checking and/or the compiler is designed to leverage type information which means that the language is at least partially statically-typed (if not entirely).
Because if a language does no type checking nor type-based optimisations, for what purpose would it have type inference built into it?

> ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org <---
>
> Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry
> PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile
>
>